FG urged to end quackery in healthcare delivery

The Federal Government has been urged to end quackery in healthcare delivery in the country.

Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria (AGPMPN) which made the call during a Medical Outreach/Corporate Social Responsibility programme organised by the Akute zone of the association said the increase in quackery is responsible for increased morbidity and mortality rates in the country.

Speaking during the outreach held at Ajuwon area of Ogun State over the weekend, state chairman, Dr. Rabiu Kusimo, asked security agencies to assist the public by ensuring that unqualified healthcare providers are arrested and quackery wiped out.

While noting that Nigerians in large numbers still seek medical treatments from dangerous sources and unqualified people, Kusimo said the arrest will further reduce the dangers to which the people are exposed to by engaging their activities.

Nigeria as a country, Kusimo said, seems “to be moving in the opposite direction of the world’s progression to horror autotoxicus in such degrading matters.

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“The quacks are not relenting, they are even getting smarter, bolder and more daring making affected individuals or/and their families of survivors of their nefarious activities to live with unending pains and sorrows.

“Poverty is indeed a factor in the expanding patronage of the quacks with ‘the penny-wise’.

“It is expedient that the government ensures a wide distribution of our people as enrollees in a fashion reminiscent of the primary health care system.

“The unnecessary crowding of all sorts of simple and cold cases at our hospitals designated as referral centres is nothing but the misplacement of priority and wastage of resources.

“The various regulatory authorities should work together to sanitise the body of medicare in Nigeria. Everybody is a stakeholder in this important matter, our wealth is indeed the health we have. The whistles and alarms are useful instruments for caution and attention.”